MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Torchbearer for Puerto Rican liberation
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
The Tertiary (Lo Terciario)
by Raquel Salas Rivera
(Timeless, Infinite Light, £12.99)
THE PROMESA (promise) — Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act of 2016 — is a US federal law and The Tertiary is a poetic response to it, seeking answers to the endemic political corruption and widespread poverty stemming from US neocolonialism.
“I remember that first time I read marx,/i wanted to be marx,” writes its author Raquel Salas Rivera, a queer poet who offers a decolonising critique and a reconsideration of Marx. He dissects Puerto Rico’s neocolonial present in thrilling language that is luminous, potent and rich.
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